For my thesis, I designed and built a high resolution
imaging spectrograph, the Imaging Spectrograph for
Interstellar Shocks (ISIS), that flew on a sub-orbital
rocket from White Sands Missile Range on November 18th,
2002. This rocket-borne instrument was designed to image hot
plasma at O~{\sc vi} \lambda\lambda 1032/1038 Å\space
behind a shock front in the Cygnus Loop. The new type of
instrument developed for this application is a novel type of
spectrograph that relies on a standard telescope for its
optical layout. This layout, in conjunction with
aberration-corrected holography, is capable of arcsecond
quality imaging in diffracted light while maintaining
arcsecond imaging at the telescope focus.

The follow-up research is based on observations of N132D, a
young, oxygen rich supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic
Cloud. These new spectroscopic observations from the Far
Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer of emitting O~{\sc vi} in
the shocked stellar ejecta were used to distinguish between
different models of the ejecta and demonstrate that there is
lack of appropriate observations of this type of remnant.

This work was supported by NASA grants NAG5-5096, NAG5-7465,
NAG5-8955, and NAG5-10319. M. Beasley was supported by a
Graduate Student Research Program fellowship NGT5-50340.